Health roundup: Text messages can help smokers quit

Dec. 3, 2012
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A cigarette is extinguished in an ashtray in a downtown Chicago plaza. Sending supportive text messages to smokers trying to quit may help them succeed, a new research review says. / MICHAEL S. GREEN Associated Press

by Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY

by Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY

Texting for health: Smokers who want to quit face discouraging odds: Just 5% succeed the first time. But those odds may double when quitters enroll in programs that send them regular supportive text messages, a new research review shows. The texts contain motivational messages and quitting advice and are increasingly used by smoking cessation programs. (NPR)

Recalled drug: Patients who still have supplies of a recalled cholesterol drug called atorvastatin -- a generic form of Lipitor -- can safely finish their pills, the Food and Drug Administration says. Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc. has stopped making the drug while it investigates how bits of glass got into some pills. (CNN)

Brain injury: A extensive study of the brains of deceased athletes and military veterans -- including some who died as teens and some who died after professional sports careers -- shows most showed signs of brain damage after repeated blows to their heads. (Associated Press and USA TODAY)

Today's talker: Are you sitting down? Probably -- but the chance that you reading the news or doing some work while standing up or walking is increasing, as more individuals and companies invest in what were once novelty items: stand-up and treadmill desks. One big office furniture maker says sales have surged fivefold in the past five years, the New York Times reports. Driving the trend: studies that show too much sitting harms health and shortens lives.